Weekly Fantasy Planner: A very Merry week for Brooklyn

Christmas week is a big marketing event for the NBA with many marquee match-ups scheduled for Christmas Day. The highlight is the rematch from last year’s NBA finals. The Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder are still the favorites to make finals in 2013. The day also features a big city match-up of New York at Los Angeles, which will have the added of drama of Mike D’Antoni coaching against his former club; the hottest team in basketball, the Los Angeles Clippers, trying to overcome the league’s best home team but also the effects of tryptophan at altitude; and, an Atlantic division battle of teams who thought their Christmas’ would be more joyful.

For fantasy the biggest challenge for week 9 will be who to sit and start on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday as the schedule features a near full roster of games on those days. Today, we will try to highlight some of the more fantasy friendly slates, some notable games and suggest some players who are owned in more than 50% of leagues to sit and some players who are owned in less than 50% of leagues to start.

Before I get going, a big thanks to Kent for covering for me while I stepped away from the fantasy basketball world for a couple of weeks to address multiple issues in my family and professional world.